Changing the LAB Experience in Undergraduate Engineering

The use of technology to enhance formative assessment in higher education continues to be a challenge regardless of advances in digital capabilities; yet research has shown its potential regardless of discipline. In undergraduate electrical and electronic engineering, which is the discipline focus in this chapter, lab work is an area that can be enhanced in this way but with such an enhancement comes a change in pedagogy from the conventional approach of in-lab physical practical work conducted by the individual student alone or in a group with limited support to one of working collaboratively in remote access laboratories scattered far and wide through an online learning systems that provides access to laboratory infrastructure and learning environments through the internet. In a collaborative learning environment, students work together to solve problems and need to become involved in dialogue to achieve a common goal where they depend on and are accountable to each other. This chapter explores students' experience of a collaborative approach to lab work regarding mastery of the voltage division rule and its relevance to formative assessment using remote access laboratories that depend on technology and internet access. The implications for task design and formative assessment are discussed based on the results of interviews with participating students. The nature of change in pedagogical practice is highlighted as are the implications for the design of formative assessment and the need to work at the level of “feedback markers” that are able to feed forward to progress learning.

A Theory-Practice Research Framework for Video-Enhanced Learning, Assessment, and Feedback

This chapter discusses a two-year project that explored the impact of video-enhanced learning, assessment, and feedback on undergraduate first-year students in higher education. Underpinned by a pragmatist epistemology, and arguing the case for a design-based methodological approach within a theoretical framework embracing the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, the community of inquiry, and the conversational framework, the chapter explores contemporary research into assessment and feedback, uses of technology-enhanced learning to promote inclusivity, and educational applications of asynchronous video.

The Student Experience of Video-Enhanced Learning, Assessment, and Feedback

Evaluating the impact on the student experience of the integrated model of video-enhanced learning, assessment, and feedback discussed in the previous chapter, qualitative data collection employed anonymous online questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and dialogic interviewing techniques, drawing on summative results data to inform methodological triangulation of the findings. Data analysis combined thematic analysis, constant comparison, and direct interpretation within a grounded theory framework. Illustrative cases present the findings as thick descriptions of the influence of video-based interventions on the experience of six purposively and representatively selected participants. The chapter concludes that an integrated model of asynchronous video-enhanced learning, assessment, and feedback can promote increased reflexivity, enhance learner autonomy, and encourage meta-cognitive self-awareness, while affording greater inclusivity for students affected by dyslexia or Asperger's Syndrome.

Utilizing Instantaneous Feedback to Promote Self-Regulated Learning in Online Higher Education Courses

In higher education learning environments, there is a dual need for educators to use supportive strategies to motivate students throughout the course, while also aiming to increase the capacity of students to self-regulate their learning. Using instantaneous tools to deliver formative or summative feedback through digital technology has been shown to lead to higher achievement and retention rates. This chapter shows how digital badges can provide instantaneous feedback to support students to feel belonging in the online community and develop self-regulation skills. Instantaneous feedback tools can be used to provide teacher presence throughout higher education courses to increase student engagement, retention, and achievement.

Student Perceptions of Screencast Video Feedback for Summative Assessment Tasks in the Creative Arts

This chapter evaluates the use of screencast video feedback for summative assessment tasks in the creative arts and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of such a format when compared to traditional feedback techniques. In 2017, in the second-year course Narrative Animation at the University of South Australia, video feedback was trialed for summative assessment tasks, in an attempt to improve students' understanding of their academic performance. Thirty-seven students participated in the course and received a five-minute feedback video for each of their three submissions. The video feedback provided to students during the course was evaluated at the end of the semester in the form of two online surveys, allowing participating students with the opportunity to critically reflect on the learning experience. The findings of the study disseminate the learning benefits afforded by the video feedback model and provide insight into the varying attitudes of both students and staff.

Are You Feeding Back or Is It Taking Students Forward?

The idea of feedback in education is accepted as vital in students' learning experience as a key to their success. Moreover, there is a growing recognition that for formative assessment practices to be most effective; data produced should be of a type that can help students improve their learning, and so should be dialogic, and feed forward rather than back. That is, students should have the opportunity to be engaged in critical reflection and dialogue about their performance in relation to such data. This chapter, therefore, presents a framework that positions dialogue at the core of formative assessment practices. It aligns this with Boud and Molloy's “Feedback Mark 2” model and Henderson et al.'s 12 conditions of success within the broader field of formative assessment to present a case for a more fine-grained examination of the concepts involved and the need for a change in mindset. The chapter argues that dialogue is the conduit through which nuanced moments and “feed markers” provide indicators of learning progression, and that how this impacts on the design of formative assessment tasks requires greater scrutiny. It concludes that the nuanced humanistic behaviors of the dialogic experience need further definition and exploration within the feedback space, and that the established narrative around the use of “feedback” needs to change to accommodate the social constructivist view of learning if practices are to be enhanced.

A Cross-Professional Collaborative Educational Approach to Building Student Feedback Literacy

Understanding and engaging with assessment feedback is a crucial step in contributing to a student's development of academic skills and content knowledge. However, in order for feedback to be effective, students need to be aware of its importance and how to engage with it. Preliminary benchmarking of the tertiary education sector in Australia demonstrates that publicly and openly accessible student resources on feedback are not available. Rather, most student resources at universities focus on common academic and study skills. At the University of Southern Queensland, a student resource was developed to inform students on the value of feedback and how to engage with it through a three-step process. This resource was embedded in first-year courses as part of a suite of academic and study skills resources. This chapter explores how student feedback resources have the potential to positively contribute to student feedback literacy, learning and development.

Mobile Devices Contribute to Feedback Processes

The use of mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablets in education is a problematic field of research that fits within the scope of assessment, mobile technologies, dialogic practices, and more broadly, feedback. This small pilot study investigated how supervising teachers incorporated a mobile device in the form of a video-enabled app into practicums to promote feedback in the form of dialogue and record achievements in alignment with requisite criteria. It further investigated the role of the app in the dialogic feedback process and the interactions between supervising teachers and preservice teachers when they undertake practical performance reviews. The findings showed that using mobile devices aids the dialogic practices of preservice teachers and leads to better outcomes. Despite the evidence, systemic organizational intent will be needed to reinforce the benefits and encourage adoption.

Course Development

This chapter discusses the impact of feedback as dialogue and video use in a new science methods course that was created to meet new governmental requirements. National demands increased the evidence required by preservice teachers to demonstrate quality teaching and learning in initial teacher education programs impacting on program and course design. This led to increasing reflective opportunities and demonstrating knowledge of subject content for preservice teachers in one small metropolitan university. The ability of 32 preservice teachers to reflect on teaching strategies and their subject knowledge as part of a video teaching assignment with peers in a university classroom is described and discussed. Results indicated high participation in dialogue and dialogic feedback. Personal reflections revealed preservice teachers' understanding of teaching strategies, pedagogies, and subject knowledge improved with support. This has implications for final year preservice teacher progress where they need to demonstrate graduate requirements to transition into the profession.

Feedback to “Feedforward”

In recognizing that effective feedback and pedagogical approaches that support social interaction in learning are vital to students' achievement, this chapter focuses on students' need to be actively involved in their learning and assessment. It reports research into how undergraduate education students utilized assessment feedback. The students provided their perceptions of the feedback strategies employed by completing a survey. This included an investigation into whether the students used the feedback to “feed forward,” that is, to answer the question as to whether it was used to enhance their responses in their next assessments. The results revealed a contrast between the students' approach to their learning compared with that of the pedagogy underpinning the course, which sought to empower them in their learning through teaching and assessment practices that engaged them in critical thinking. The students appeared to lack assessment literacy since they treated the feedback as corrective of the assignment being marked and not relevant to them taking-action to improve their future work. It is recommended that this disconnect be further explored since without students' understanding of the purposes of assessment and feedback, in keeping with their educators' intent they are limited in their ability to learn.